Time Takes Us All
by Jet Black Feeling
Summary: Draco reminisces... Very short ficlet, I really don't want to spoil it in the summary. I wrote this for Draco's birthday.


**Title**: Time Takes Us All  
**Category**: Post-war Angstish  
**Rating**: PG  
**Pairing**: Harry/Draco  
**Word Count**: 591  
**Summary**: Draco reminisces...  
**A/N**: Well, I wrote this today because it's Draco's birthday. It was going to be happy and light, but it morphed. So angst abounds. I want to see a drawing of this. Sadly, I can't draw. I might try, though. Constructive critisism is appretiated. This is unbetad.  
**Disclaimer**: I don't own any of it. Other than the sad excuse for a plot. The title is from the song _The Ripper_ by The Used.

* * *

Fireworks flashed like blood and the Dark Mark against the inky curtain of night. There were no stars, only the cheap imitations most commonly produced by Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes. Passerby were nonexistent, especially in this muggle-infested place. Most of the resident's of Godric's Hollow were able to sleep in relative peace, without a deafening boom disturbing them, since all of the celebration was so far away. Earlier, when he had been in Diagon Alley, many people had stopped him to wish him a happy birthday. Well, they'd wished him a happy Freedom Day, but their intent was the same. For them, it was a day that inspired joy. In him, it inspired anger. Fierce anger towards the boy the ridiculous holiday was supposedly celebrating, anger at the people who made it _supposedly_, anger at each year that passed, and, most of all, anger at himself for letting all of that rage leak through his carefully erected façade.

He stuffed his hands into the shallow pockets of his slacks as he shuffled down the shadowed and deserted street, glancing around at blank-eyed windows, hoping desperately not to be seen. He jumped slightly as something rubbed up against his leg. _Sodding cats._ Once he reached the now-familiar white picket fence, he reached out, running a hand lazily over it was he walked. He flicked a strand of blond hair absently from his eyes, hesistant about whether to go any futher. He pushed the gate open reluctantly, wincing as it swung noisily on his hinges, like fingernails on a chalkboard. He walked slowly, warily, towards the back of the empty lot. There were three small markers. Two were white stone of some kind, laying flat against the ground. He paid those no mind. They weren't why he'd come. The third was a rough-hewn wooden cross, barely a foot high, and even after only three years the words carved in it were illegible. He knew what it said, though, so it wasn't like it mattered. No one else ever came, anyway. The reason, the _real_ reason for this day of celebration was something the masses couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was to celebrate a life, a life well lived, not wasted. They didn't celebrate that. They just used the day as an excuse to get pissed. Not that Draco used it for that either, but for a different reason entirely.Draco used the day to lash out. Harry's life hadn't been well-spent. He had only been seventeen, for fuck's sake, how was a seventeen year old supposed to have a _life well-spent_? It wasn't a good life at all. He'd been stalked during the entirety of it, and, besides... Draco had been his enemy, at least until that last year.

Draco clenched his fists and flinched hard. He wanted to yell, to scream, to do _anything_ but what his eyes were beginning to do. He hadn't cried since sixth year... he hadn't even cried on his eighteenth birthday, though he had had every reason to. He collapsed onto his knees, tears just beginning their course from his eyes, and pulled his wand from the pocket of the loose robe he was wearing. It was a deep emerald green, matching the ground around him, and for some reason he refused to acknowledge, he wore it now every day. He pointed his wand towards the cross, muttered a spell, and suddenly the words long faded reappeared, vivid and cruel as the day they had been carved.

_Harry James Potter_

_July 31, 1980 - June 5, 1998_

_RIP_


End file.
